The Department of Labor under Secretary Eugene Scalia and President Trump issued a final rule on Sunday clarifying what situations qualify as conferring joint employer status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). While this may seem like an arcane area of law, it is yet another example of how the Trump administration is promoting the rule of law through providing clear legal rules in areas of confusion. Unclear legal standards not only undermine the rule of law but also stifle economic growth and innovation among American businesses:

In a series of two blog posts, RNLA will detail our top 10 blog posts of 2019.  Today Numbers 10-6.  

10.  May 1: TOP MOMENTS OF BARR HEARING

Attorney General Bill Barr drives it home -"How did we get to this point? The President was falsely accused of colluding with Russians - the evidence shows those allegations are false. To listen to some of the rhetoric you’d think the Mueller Report had found the opposite."

Carter Page served as foreign policy advisor to the 2016 Trump campaign and also as a CIA asset.  He is exhibit one in the abuse (or worse) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the FBI in their efforts to investigate the Trump campaign. Don’t take our word for it- Judge Rosemary Collyer, the Presiding Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, is furious. 

In our continued focus on Democrats who oppose impeachment, today we focus on famous lawyer and law professor Alan Dershowitz, who makes a strong case against impeachment, again.  We say again because he also wrote a book about the first quasi-impeachment effort which became the Mueller report.  Dershowitz details how Maxine Waters' interpretation of Congress' impeachment power is wrong and dangerous.

There are those like Congresswoman Maxine Waters who argue that Congress can impeach on any ground a majority wishes. “There is no law,” she has asserted, because then power to impeach is vested solely in the House and there is no judicial review of its actions. Even if that were true — and it is debatable —Waters’ lawless and reductionistic view confuses what Congress can get away with, as distinguished from what the Constitution obliges its members to do: namely to apply the criteria set out in the Constitution.

President Trump continues to tighten the reigns of executive agencies, this time by issuing two Executive Orders designed to prevent agencies from improperly using guidance documents. Together, these orders reinforce agency adherence to the rule of law and due process and also provide meaningful restraint to regulatory overreach.

Yesterday, President Trump celebrated the 158th judge nominated by him confirmed by the Senate. Here are some statistics:

President Obama appointee Beryl A. Howell cleared the way for House Democrats to further leak and try to politically damage the President when she authorized the release of grand jury materials from the Mueller investigation. This violates one of the fundamental principles of grand juries: that their proceedings must be kept secret.  As Margot Cleveland wrote in the Federalist:

Access to the grand jury materials won’t transform the House’s proceedings into a “full and fair impeachment inquiry”—it will just give the Democrats more information to selectively leak to the press. . . .

[T]here’s no need to look beyond the closed doors of the committees to conclude that the Democrats aren’t requesting the grand jury materials to avoid an injustice—but to avoid a reelection.

Today, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court's decision in Chatfield v. League of Women Voters (League of Women Voters v. Benson below) and remanded for further consideration in light of Rucho v. Common Cause.  There was nothing unexpected or even very newsworthy in this, but what is newsworthy is the hand-wringing among Democrats and in the mainstream media.  The misleading headlines and stories that gave the impression that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Michigan Republicans.

As we celebrate Constitution Day today, it is worth remembering that the Founders carefully wrote the Constitution to ensure that our third branch of government was independent through mechanisms such as life tenure, the prohibition against diminution of salary, and the nomination and confirmation mechanism itself, and that judicial independence is what preserves the Constitution and our system of government.  

Yet many liberals now want to undermine the independence of the judiciary because judges do not always reach the outcomes they desire to advance their progressive policy goals.  

Or perhaps more accurately, they are attempting to redefine judicial independence to mean a judiciary that advances progressive policy goals and interests.  

The Democrats of the 2010s have become the Party that refuses to respect results or the rule of law.  While the most obvious example is their continuing efforts to undermine elections, the most recent example, and most troubling to those who practice law, may be the recent threats of Senate Democrats to the courts.  As we wrote last week, Senator Whitehouse threatened the Supreme Court in an unprecedented amicus brief.  Today, Senate Republicans responded.